Books

Fear is a powerful emotion and a formidable spur to action, a source of worry and – when it is manipulated – a source of injustice. Manufacturing Phobias demonstrates how economic and political elites mobilize fears of terrorism, crime, migration, invasion, and infection to twist political and social policy and advance their own agendas.

Few activities have captured the contemporary popular imagination as hacking and online activism, from Anonymous and beyond. Few political ideas have gained more notoriety recently than anarchism. Yet both remain misunderstood and much maligned. Cyber Disobedience provides a most engaging and detailed analysis of online civil disobedience and anarchism today.

As capitalist societies in the twenty-first century move from crisis to crisis, oppositional movements in the global North have been somewhat stymied (despite ephemeral manifestations like Occupy), confronted with the pressing need to develop organizational infrastructures that might prepare the ground for a real, and durable, alternative.

More and more, the need to develop shared infrastructural resources — what Shantz terms “infrastructures of resistance” — becomes apparent. Ecological disaster (through crises of capital), economic crisis, political austerity, and mass produced fear and phobia all require organizational preparation — the common building of real world alternatives.

Anarchy & Society explores the many ways in which the discipline of Sociology and the philosophy of anarchism are compatible. The book constructs possible parameters for a future ‘anarchist sociology’, by a sociological exposition of major anarchist thinkers (including Kropotkin, Proudhon, Landauer, Goldman, and Ward), as well as an anarchist interrogation of key sociological concepts (including social norms, inequality, and social movements). Sociology and anarchism share many common interests—although often interpreting each in divergent ways—including community, solidarity, feminism, crime and restorative justice, and social domination. The synthesis proposed by Anarchy & Society is reflexive, critical, and strongly anchored in both traditions.

It is widely understood that the burdens of ecological destruction are borne disproportionately by working-class and poor communities, both through illness and disease caused by pollutants and through the depletion of natural resources from which they make a living. Yet, consistently, the voices of the working class are the most marginalized, excluded, and silenced when discussing how to address ecological concerns and protect the environment from future destruction. Both mainstream environmental groups, such as the Sierra Club and Greenpeace, and radical environmentalists, such as EarthFirst!, are reluctant to engage with working-class and poor communities, often viewing blue-collar workers as responsible for the destruction these groups are trying to prevent. In Green Syndicalism, Shantz issues a call to action to the environmental movement and labor activists, particularly rank and file workers, to join forces in a common struggle to protect the environment from capitalism, corporate greed, and the extraction of resources. He argues for a major transformation to address the "jobs versus the environment" rhetoric that divides these two groups along lines of race and class. Combining practical initiatives and theoretical perspectives, Shantz

Jeff's got two different chapters in this new ANARCHIST PEDAGOGIES book, just released from PM Press. In the 2nd section, "...In the Here & Now", his chapter 7 is on "Spaces of Learning: The Anarchist Free Skool" (history on the early days of this Toronto experiment) and he's also written chapter 9, "Learning to Win: Anarchist Infrastructures of Resistance", on alternative approaches to education in a blue-collar working class community context.

[NB. This PDF is an earlier draft version of Chapter 2 in Jeff's book "Active Anarchy", which, although recently published, was actually written several years ago ~ 2003. We are re-posting it here now given the recent firestorm of debate over the bloc tactic.